Disclosure Book 1 Jazz Phantom
by BenRG
Summary: Jazz Fenton always thought of herself as being lucky... until the day that her luck utterly ran out. A pre-PP story of a growing Fenton family; Part 1 of 3
1. Metamorphosis

**Disclosure**

A Danny Phantom fanfic by BenRG

**Disclaimer**

Danny Phantom and the characters, situations, technologies and locations of the Danny Phantom universe were created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon Television. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of any trademark or copyright is intended or implied.

**Author's Notes**

This story was inspired by "The Ghost Portal's Done it Again!" by Half-Ghost, who is the person who came up with the credible idea for how Jazz could end up in the situation described in this story. I credit them entirely with the initial concept of this story. I hope that I'm not treading on any toes to use it as the jumping-off point for my own little tale about our favourite Ghost-Boy hero and his friends and family.

Half-Ghost, if you have any problems with this story, please feel free to email or PM me so we can discuss it.

Censor: T

**Book 1 – Jazz Phantom **

**Chapter 1 - Metamorphosis**

Jasmine 'Jazz' Fenton supposed that she had the right to feel lucky.

Okay, her parents varied between eccentric and outright insane with their monomania on catching ghosts. She had a kid brother who, by some freak of mischance, had been turned into a half-ghost _superhero_. Worse still, she lived in Amity Park, a kind of localised magnet for all things paranormal. Despite these things, she managed to have a remarkably contented life. She was doing well with her studies. Her grades were more than good enough and she was confident that, in time, she would gain acceptance to the college of her choice. Okay, there wasn't a 'significant other' in her life right now, but she wasn't in a hurry like a lot of her peers. Frankly, she thought that it was silly, trying to find a life partner whilst still in high school. Not everyone was as touched by fate as her brother, after all, who already seemed to have found a near-perfect match (although the poor clueless dope clearly didn't know it yet).

Nonetheless, she felt lucky. Until today. Today, she feared, was the day her luck finally and completely ran out.

She had been helping Danny with his ghost-hunting activities for some time, helping him to collate and codify the knowledge of ghosts, their nature, sociology, behaviour and unique world that he and his friends were painstakingly gathering as his adventures multiplied. She thus immediately recognised the malevolent creature known as 'Skulker' as soon as it appeared in her parents' laboratory. The self-proclaimed 'greatest hunter in the Ghost Zone' was obsessed with conquering the toughest 'prey' and taking macabre trophies for its collection. She knew it had sworn to take the life and skin of her beloved baby brother. Understandably, despite her fear, she wasn't about to let the creature get out of the lab and start chasing after Danny again.

It wasn't until much later that she would laugh and realise that her half-ghost kid brother was far better equipped to tackle the cybernetic monstrosity than she was. All she knew at the time was that Skulker would hurt Danny over her cold, rotting corpse. She grabbed one of her mother's ecto-blaster handguns from the work table next to her and shot the creature whilst it was still monologuing interminably about what it would do to Danny when it got its hands on him.

Unfortunately, that was pretty much the last shot that she got in. Skulker was massively stronger than The Box Ghost (the only ghost that Jazz had previously tackled single-handed) and was even stronger than Johnny-13's girlfriend Kitty (who Jazz had crossed... ecto-blasts with on more than one occasion). All Jazz could do was use every bit of her martial arts and gymnastics skill to keep ahead of a nearly-unending hail of blaster bolts, machinegun bursts and fire-and-forget anti-personnel micro-missiles. Finally, Skulker tired of the target practice and swept forward, feinting to the left before firing a grappling line at the young woman's ankles as she back-pedalled from where she had _thought_ he as aiming his next shot. Snared, Jazz fell onto her backside and Skulker was on her in a moment snatching Jazz by the hair and lifting up into the air.

"You did well, little fireball," the huge ghost rumbled. "You are more than worthy prey for a lesser hunter. For one such as I, however, you are only a distraction." There was a metallic 'snick' and Skulker raised his other hand, two 18-inch long serrated knife blades emerging from his wrist bracer, perfectly spaced for severing a human head from its body.

Jazz, despite being on the edge of hysteria, somehow remembered that she was still armed. "Don't be so sure, ecto-breath!" she shrieked in a combination of terror and fury. She levelled her handgun at the creature's face and put an ecto-blast right in-between its eyes. With a roar of fury, Skulker threw Jazz across the room and followed that up with a plasma blast from his shoulder-mounted cannon. Blinded by Jazz's last shot, he missed and the bolt (which nearly took off Jazz's ear) struck something behind her and she felt the wave of heat from the resulting explosion.

Jazz's back struck the wall with nearly bone-snapping force and the world briefly turned into flashing stars. Darkness beckoned. Somehow, Jazz fought it off as Skulker advanced on her with all the pity and inevitability of an avalanche.

Desperately, Jazz fired at the oncoming behemoth but Skulker was barely phased, jerking briefly away from the strike to the shoulder before slapping the blaster out of her hand. Skulker reached forward with his right hand and seized the young woman around the throat, his huge hand easily encircling her neck. He effortlessly lifted her into the air. Jazz pounded and scratched uselessly at the huge metallic hand, trying to loosen its' grip enough so that she could at least _breathe_. As the darkness closed in from the edge of her vision, she looked into Skulker's glowing red eyes. "As I said, little fireball, you are a distraction," he growled. "Don't worry though: Your precious little brother will be joining you soon enough."

With an almost dismissive gesture Skulker threw Jazz away. The young woman found herself flying though the air again, this time directly at the Ghost Portal. She knew that, outside of the Spectre Speeder or without a sealed HAZMAT suit, no human would last more than a few seconds in the alien continuum - hell there wasn't even air to breathe! With the curiously detached clarity of one who was about to die, she noticed that some of Skulker's earlier weapons-fire had damaged the Portal's control mechanism. Instead of a steady green vortex, the portal was filled with blue-white lightning and showers of yellow electrical sparks.

Then she entered the damaged Portal.

Then the pain began.

Jazz hadn't realised that the act of dying would take so long and hurt so much. Lightning crawled over her skin and Jazz felt as if her every nerve ending was being seared away. She swore that she could see her bones glowing through her skin. All she could do was writhe helplessly in the midst of the merciless arcing energy fields and scream and scream and scream.

* * *

Consciousness returned slowly. Jazz was lying on the floor of the lab, just outside of the Portal, which had now shut down. Every joint ached and every nerve ending sang with pain. She looked at the white object in front of her and wondered what it was. Then she realised it was her left hand, clad in the glove of one of her mother's old HAZMAT suits, which she had been wearing whilst taking her turn at clearing up the lab. With a groan, Jazz hauled herself to her feet.

_I... I need help! Ambulance. Got to call an ambulance!_

As she staggered towards the stairs, Jazz did not immediately notice the various anomalies. Normally, the HAZMAT suit was blue with black gloves, boots and neck. Right now, it was maroon-red with white boots, neck and gloves. Jazz also began to realise that she wasn't making a noise as she walked across the lab. Then she realised that she wasn't breathing... and didn't feel the need to breathe. The young woman's mouth dropped open. She placed a shaking hand against the side of her neck. No pulse. It was at that point that she noticed the green-white ectoplasmic glow outlining her body.

When Jazz's mind could process sensory data again, she was curled up in a foetal ball against the wall by a work bench, sobbing hysterically. She was _dead_! A _ghost_!

A thousand contradictory thoughts collided in her head. She had to run away! Get as far away from her friends and family as she could! Ghosts were dangerous, or so Mom and Dad always warned - they didn't really have thoughts or feelings, just overwhelming obsessions and the power to try to fulfil them. She could hurt people in a blind need to achieve some weird goal of hers! In any case, her parents were professional ghost hunters and the last thing she wanted to do in the first day of her afterlife was have her family trap her and pick her apart... What was Dad's favourite phrase...? Oh yeah: 'molecule by molecule'!

_Whoa! Ease down there, Jazzy!_ She had to focus and try to be logical. Panic at this stage would not only be counter-productive, it would be the enemy of achieving anything useful.

She didn't _feel_ the overwhelming need to do _anything _right now and she certainly didn't want to hurt anyone. Of course, she didn't know how long that would last. However, she had to admit that this circumstance was oddly useful. She had a lot unsaid to the people in her life and now she had the chance to say it. After that... Well, she wasn't sure what she would do after that. Finding someplace to haunt and spending the rest of eternity going bump in the night didn't exactly appeal. What alternative was there though? She wished that she had met some of the ghosts in positions of authority that Danny knew... _Danny_! Of course! Her little brother was half-ghost and could help her! He would either know or could find out how she could 'pass over' or whatever it was when ghosts were finally ready to move on to whatever happened to non-ghostly dead people.

A slightly crazy giggle escaped Jazz's lips. She had to cool down - she was starting to mentally babble and that was never a good sign.

Jazz slowly and shakily stood up and looked around the lab. The place was a shambles. There was, thankfully, no sign of her... her... her _body_ – the damaged ghost portal had probably vaporised it. On a certain level, that was a relief. She was glad that Mom and Dad wouldn't be confronted with her charred corpse when they got home. However, it did leave her with the responsibility to remain at the Fenton Works until they returned. They might be exasperating, but she owed them an explanation of what had happened to their daughter.

Jazz was about to head up the stairs when she was struck by a thought. She had always wondered what it was like for Danny and now she had an opportunity to find out! If nothing else, she owed it to science to try to replicate her little brother's experimental findings!

Jazz stood still for a moment and remembered Danny's description of trying to feel empty... 'like a wind is blowing right through you' as he put it. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensation and, as Danny said he did, willed herself off the ground.

Jazz didn't feel so different but, when she opened her eyes, she found herself semi-transparent and half-way through the basement ceiling with her head and shoulders in the living room of the Fenton family home. Jazz was so surprised that she went fully corporeal, getting stuck half-way through the floor. Jazz screamed in panic and struggled helplessly for a moment before suddenly realising how stupid she was being. "Smooth, Fenton, real smooth," she told herself with a slightly self-deprecating chuckle. This time keeping her eyes open, she concentrated on the same sensations. As soon as her white boot-clad feet were clear of the floor, she willed herself corporeal again and dropped lightly to the floor.

Jazz grinned to herself. Most girls were paranoid about their body weight. Well, she was literally and figuratively beyond that concern now. Ectoplasm was so diffuse a material that Jazz doubted that she weighed more than a pound!

On a strange instinct, Jazz turned to the mirror on the wall over the cabinet where Mom kept various books, photo albums and maps. Jazz looked at her ghostly features with an odd sense of detachment. Her physical features had not changed but it was like looking at a photographic negative of her face. Her skin had darkened to a tan-green shade like Danny's when he was in full ghost mode. Her red hair had gone a pale, eggshell blue like that of the rock star ghost Ember McLean and even her hair-band had changed from its normal blue to a deep maroon-red. What really caught and held her attention were her eyes. Like her brother, she had bright blue eyes, inherited from her father. Now, however, her eyes were a bright, unnatural energetic green, visibly glowing in the dimly-lit room.

_My eyes are the same colour as Danny's_, Jazz thought in a curiously detached way. Was this the first stage, she wondered? Would she slowly lose her emotions and her ability to sense the surreal _wrongness _of her situation until she was fully ghost - free of all emotion and conscience and aware only of a cold determination to achieve her goals no matter who she hurt?

Jazz staggered away from the mirror and collapsed onto the couch, hating with all of her heart the way that the cushions did not compress under her minuscule weight. It wasn't fair! Her time shouldn't have come yet! There was so much she wanted to do! So much she wanted to achieve! She wanted to know love and to have children of her own! She wanted to make her mark on the world and help people heal their minds and hearts as a practising psychiatrist! It wasn't fair! _It wasn't fair! _IT WASN'T FAIR!

Jazz Fenton curled up in a ball on the couch and, face pressed into her gloved hands, she wept, screamed and wailed inarticulately until her mind shut down and she was aware no more...

* * *

Jazz jerked awake when the front door burst open. Danny stood in the doorway, looking considerably worse for the wear. Tucker had a very visible black eye and Sam was cradling her left arm and had three parallel scratches on her right cheek. "Danny!" Jazz gasped as she staggered to her feet. "Danny! Are you okay?"

Danny visibly started when he saw his sister. In a moment, his expression of surprise turned into joy and he leapt forward, practically colliding mid-air with Jazz and hugging her as if he was afraid she would just vanish. "Jazz! You're okay! Thank God! He said… he said that he'd killed you!"

_Skulker_, her mind reminded her. Guilt clenched at her heart when she realised that she had been so focussed on her own grief that she had not thought to warn her little brother of the ghostly menace out for his hide. "Was it Skulker?"

"Yeah, he tried to get the drop on us by overshadowing Tucker!"

"It almost worked," Tucker added bitterly, his voice laden with self-accusation. Jazz made a mental note to schedule time to talk the usually-upbeat technological genius out of his pointless and unjustified sense of guilt.

"It wasn't your fault Tucker," Danny snapped. "We're just lucky that Skulker stinks as an actor and we were able to see through him."

"Not before Sam got hurt," Tucker sighed.

Sam slapped her friend on the shoulder and winced, clutching her left elbow again. "Hey! I told you not to worry about it!" the Goth girl snapped. "We all know the risks in this game! Sh... er..." Sam shot Jazz a guilty look. "_Stuff_ happens."

Jazz had turned to the cabinet under the mirror and pulled out one of the first aid kits that Mom kept around the house. As she did so she wondered at the fact that her brother and his friends had not remarked on her 'make-over'. As she stood up straight, she glanced in the mirror and realised that her eyes and hair were their normal colour and that she was wearing a periwinkle-blue spaghetti-strap top and bell-bottom jeans. Jazz gasped and then realised that she was _breathing_. There was the deep, reassuring warmth of blood and the throb of a heartbeat that Jazz had not really noticed until she had 'lived' without it.

Jazz froze for a moment at the sight of her indisputably _human_ features and clothing. _Was it all a dream?_ she wondered hazily. _If it was... how did I know about Skulker?_ Jazz was so surprised that the first-aid kit dropped out of her hands. With a muttered curse, the redhead leant down to pick it up... only to see her fingers _pass right through the box_. Jazz bit her bottom lip, forcing down a need to scream. She screwed her eyes shut and _willed _herself fully corporeal before picking up the kit.

"How badly hurt are you, Danny?" she asked as she turned around, trying to keep the squeak of stress and panic out of her voice.

"I heal fast," Danny announced. "Look at Sam's arm first. Skulker was yanking on it pretty hard!"

"Danny! Please remember to look after yourself!" Sam's exasperated plea brought a slight smile to Jazz's lips.

"Sam! Look, will you just let me worry about you for once?"

Jazz forced herself not to giggle, catching the amused glint in Tucker's eyes. The two of them _already _acted like a married couple! What would they be like when they finally admitted to each other that they liked each other and started dating for real? "Danny," Jazz said aloud. "I want to check you over whilst I put together a sling for Sam's arm. Please take off your shirt, little brother."

_To be continued…_


	2. Going Ghost Girl

**Disclosure**

A Danny Phantom fanfic by BenRG

**Disclaimer**

Danny Phantom and the characters, situations, technologies and locations of the Danny Phantom universe were created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon Television. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of any trademark or copyright is intended or implied.

Censor: T

**Book 1 – Jazz Phantom **

**Chapter 2 - Going Ghost (Girl)**

Jazz lay on her bed, completing her journal entry for the day. She had been fully human for virtually all the time except for two incidents, one embarrassing and the other potentially disastrous. First she had gone intangible when she had got onto her bed after lunch and had spent a few panicked minutes trying to _swim_ out of the structure of the bed into open air until she remembered that she could fly. Second, she had gone invisible at dinner when her father had whipped out a new ghost-sensing apparatus that promptly went berserk, screaming that she and Danny were ghosts. Danny had been busy having a panic attack of his own and Mom and Dad were too busy trying to shut down the Fenton Spook Spotter, so none of them noticed Jazz's sudden apparent absence.

_It's no good, I will have to tell them_, Jazz told herself. Danny seemed determined to keep up this silly, immature 'secret identity' thing with their parents but Jazz was supposed to be the mature one, damn it! She was supposed to be the one who made decisions based on reason and logic, not like her impulsive and often-insecure little brother.

Then again... Jazz sighed. For the very first time she fully understood and shared her brother's heart-chilling horror at hearing her parents casually discussing the torments that they would inflict on any ghost they captured in the name of their so-called 'science'. No matter how hard she tried, Jazz's mind easily called up the image of she and Danny, helplessly bound to hard tables in the lab, their expressionless parents leaning towards them with energy knives or some other means of cutting their ectoplasmic bodies apart...

After willing herself back on top of her bed, Jazz screwed up her eyes and forced herself to go visible and corporeal again.

She might joke about her parents being 'insane' but it was closer to the truth than either Danny or, frequently, even she was willing to confront. Dad was intelligent, yes, but incredibly driven and obsessive to the point where she and Danny practically had to do without his day-to-day presence. Worse he had a child-like personality and frequently seemed to fail to understand that his actions had consequences - he was possibly a psychotic. Mom had a far better bond with Danny and Jazz, but there was a chilling, paranoid violence to her body language and voice when she talked about what she wanted to do with ghosts. Worse, her unquestioning devotion to Dad made Jazz wonder about the possibility of a submissive emotional dependence that would make Mom abide by any decision Dad made, no matter how unethical.

Jazz finished her journal entry and sighed. No, as much as she loathed it, until she was certain that she had a way to break the news to her parents that would ensure that they were still seeing their children before them, not two dangerous ghosts and potential laboratory 'subjects', she could not talk to her Mom and Dad about this.

What about Danny? She hated to approach Danny. She might occasionally tease her little brother but she knew the weight that he bore as the protector of Amity Park and she would hate to be responsible for increasing that burden in any way. Besides, she knew his mind too well from using him as her 'subject' in several Psych case studies for class. He would see her 'affliction' as a personal failure on his part - after all, was Skulker not one of his enemies? He had failed to protect her from him! She did not want to add guilt over the consequences of her own decisions to the troubles that he already bore in both his heroic and everyday lives.

Jazz slid off of her bed and stood up. Suddenly she realised that she had an opportunity that she had never dreamed that she would have. She had long wished to lift some of that burden from Danny's shoulders. Well, now the chance had been given to her. She had already demonstrated invisibility, intangibility and flight. Would she develop his other powers also? She mentally listed those she knew of: Energy field casting and manipulation, cryokinesis, the old ghostly standby of telekinesis and that incredible sonic/energy attack.

Jazz wasn't sure that she _wanted_ superpowers of any sort. Of course, she also didn't want crazy, obsessive parents, to live in a town where every night was Thriller Night and to have a brother who had been driven nearly to a mental and emotional breakdown by hands-off parents who really didn't seem to _understand_ that they had a family some days. So, ultimately, she had to get used to the fact that she wasn't going to get a lot of what she asked for in life and learn to roll with the punches.

Jazz looked at herself in her long dressing mirror and wondered how like Danny's her 'condition' was. The fact that she was demonstrating the same powers as Danny's, and that her initial symptoms were so similar to his both suggested that, by pure chance, the damage to the Fenton Portal had somehow replicated the conditions that led to Danny's receiving his powers. If this was so, then she was no longer a human but was not _entirely_ a ghost. If she had shared her little brother's fate then she was a... what was the word Danny said the ghosts used...? Oh yes, she was a 'Halfa', a kind of half-way house between alive and dead, able to choose which state she was in.

There was only one way to find out. She took a mock-heroic pose and, thanking God for the fact that all their bedrooms were sound-proofed, declared her brother's battle cry. "_Goin' Ghost!_" Naturally, nothing happened. Jazz nearly folded double from laughing so hard. It _couldn't_ be that simple. What was the key, then? She stood again and glared at her reflection. She screwed her eyes shut and concentrated. "Go, go ghost!" she cried out. Nothing. She opened her eyes and took a posture of power. "Spook power activate!" Still nothing.

Jazz slapped her forehead. She opened the door to her room, strode across the corridor and knocked on Danny's bedroom door. "Yeah?" Danny called from inside.

"Danny, can I come in?"

"Sure!" Jazz entered to find Danny sitting in front his PC whilst Tucker lounged on the beanbag over by his closet and Sam lay on her belly on Danny's bed. All three kids had books open and were taking notes for their classes. "What's up, Sis?" Danny asked. He raised his arms to show that the bruises and abrasions from his fight with Skulker were gone. "I told you that I heal fast!"

_Yeah, I know_, Jazz thought. _I don't have a single bruise or scratch left from my little coming together with Skulker_. "I just need to borrow the Phantompedia," she announced. The Phantompedia was Sam's name for the scrapbook (more a box-file now) that contained the results of the their research into Danny's condition. It was all there – Danny's own description of his experiences and the painstaking measurements that they had taken, physical, chemical and biometric. There were tapes of Jazz's interviews with Danny, discussing his thoughts, fears and hopes about his situation. There were even flash drives containing computer-analyses of Danny's powers and videos taken by Tucker of Danny demonstrating his powers. Most importantly, it had Danny's description of how he believed his powers worked and the sensations that he experienced as he did so.

Danny shrugged acquiescence. He walked over to his closet, lifted up the carpet and removed the box file from its place in a hidden recess underneath the floorboards.

"What do you need it for?" Sam asked, shifting uncomfortably. The girl's elbow had been pretty badly wrenched. It was only over-extension but she wasn't going to be moving it too much for a few days.

"I just wanted to compare my experiences with yours," Jazz lied smoothly. It _was_ almost true, after all.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you from him," Danny said, guilt filling his blue eyes.

On an impulse, Jazz touched her little brother's cheek and caressed it reassuringly. "It wasn't your fault," she replied. "We're all at risk in this town. Just being your sister doesn't change that."

Danny nodded reluctantly in agreement. Jazz took the file, thanked her little brother and left him and his friends to their homework.

* * *

Jazz waited until everyone was asleep before taking the next step.

In herself, she had never felt so awake but she knew that was just adrenaline, not just her 'condition'. Danny tired out normally enough when he lost sleep due to ghost-fighting and Jazz was sure that she would pay for tonight when she got to school tomorrow.

Her parents had made this a bit more difficult by staying up until way after midnight working on repairing the Fenton Portal. Her mother's blood-soaked promise of vengeance on the ghost who had damaged her husband's masterpiece had only strengthened Jazz's determination not to mention her condition to them without having first come up with a back-up plan to handle their obsession. What made it worse (and it made poor Danny so pale and frightened) was that their parents were blaming 'the Ghost-Boy' even though Jazz had loudly stated that he was not responsible for the damage.

Jazz had carefully studied Danny's description of his transformation and how he consciously called up his ghost form. She now felt confident that she understood the _how_. Now she had to see if she really could replicate it herself.

The young woman stood up and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She sucked in a deep breath and looked her reflection in the eyes. "Okay, girl genius," she announced. "Now's the time to see if you _really_ have got what it takes." Jazz concentrated hard. She focussed on the cold rush of ectoplasm, the numbing chill of being a creature of organised energy fields and the tingle of power in her limbs…

Jazz's body flashed white like a camera's flash gun going off. A bright blue-white hoop of light appeared around Jazz's waist and split into two, one travelling down and the other up. Behind the hissing ring, Jazz's clothes metamorphosed into a body-hugging maroon-red and white HAZMAT suit. As the energy flowed over Jazz's face, her skin darkened to tan-green and her hair bleached to eggshell blue. Her eyes shone bright green, the same colour as the dim light outlining her body.

"It… it worked!" Jazz gasped out. "I went ghost! It worked! YAHOO!" Jazz jumped into the air in glee and wasn't even remotely surprised not to come down again. Jazz immediately began to fly around her room, laughing joyfully, noting as she did so that her legs lost definition and turned into a tail-like streamer of ectoplasm. "This is _great_!" Jazz willed her legs back and dropped back to the floor. No longer would Danny have to fumble through this on his own! Now he would have someone who could show him how it was done! An _adult_!

With a grin, Jazz willed herself intangible and soared up through the ceiling of her bedroom out onto what used to be the roof of their brownstone apartment and was now the balcony/veranda of the Op Centre her parents built when they took charge of the building. She looked out over the sleeping town of Amity Park. "Look out, Amity Park!" she called out, noticing for the first time the ghostly reverberation of her voice when she was in this form. "'Cause, ready or not, here I come!"

Then, something unexpected happened, something that reminded the young woman just how far she had to go before she could consider herself a match for her 'baby brother'. She gasped as a wisp of cold blue vapour escaped her lips. Instinctively, she turned in the direction it went in time to see a green-white light, blazing like the sun, flash out of the side of the building and into the night like a thunderbolt of Zeus. _Danny!_ Somehow she had never understood just how _unimaginably_ powerful her little brother was before this moment. Perhaps her new 'condition' allowed her to see his power more clearly or, maybe, her recent experiences had allowed her to see past the 'little brother' to the 'Conqueror of the Ghost King'.

Just to make the experience that bit more immediate, her brother had arced around and was heading _right for her_. A panicked squeak escaped Jazz's lips as she went invisible. She _so_ did not want to have this confrontation right now, especially as, from his posture, she felt that Danny was spoiling for a fight.

"Don't bother going invisible on me," Danny declared loudly as he dropped into a hover in front of the balcony. "Believe me, it won't do you any good."

Much to Jazz's horror, she saw the green light in her brother's eyes suddenly flash out like lasers, scanning along the line of the balcony. With a sudden uncanny certainty, Jazz guessed that this new trick (which Danny hadn't got around to telling her about yet, obviously) would penetrate her invisibility like it wasn't even active.

Jazz stamped down hard on her panic. Going intangible, she dropped back through the roof and into her bedroom. "Human, human, human!" she babbled to herself as she hovered in the middle of the room. "Go human! Come on!" Jazz looked at the window and saw the aura of light around Danny – he was heading for her room! Squeezing her eyes shut she focussed on the feeling of warmth and life, of wanting and needing to breathe and the feel of blood pumping through her veins…

Jazz dropped clumsily onto her bed, bounced off and ended up lying on her back as Danny phased through the wall and came to a hover right over her. "Jazz! Are you okay?" he asked urgently.

"I… er… I'm fine, Danny," she said, her voice just a little bit too high for her liking. "I must have fallen out of bed or something!"

Jazz staggered to her feet with an embarrassed smile, not liking the suspicious scowl on her little brother's face one bit. Suddenly, Danny went semi-transparent and flew right through her! Jazz gasped. "Danny! What was that for?"

"Uh… sorry, Sis!" Danny replied, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "I just had to make sure you hadn't been overshadowed or anything! There's some ghost prowling around!"

"Well, thank you for thinking to check," Jazz replied, managing a slight smile that looked sufficiently natural. Then she scowled. "Now, kindly _get out of my room_!"

Danny squeaked in fear and, going intangible again, shot through the door, doubtless heading for his own room.

Jazz sat down hard on the floor. She began to laugh. She had forgotten about Danny's infallible Ghost Sense! However, she had demonstrated that she, too, had it and also shared his instinctive sense of direction towards nearby paranormal activity. This was another data point in favour of her eventually sharing all of her little brother's powers. She had also forgotten how much nearly a year of ghost fighting had turned Danny into a seasoned and deadly warrior. If she thought that she was in a position to replace him any time soon, then _she _was the one who needed her head examined!

_To be continued…_


	3. The Ghost Girl of Amity Park

**Disclosure**

A Danny Phantom fanfic by BenRG

**Disclaimer**

Danny Phantom and the characters, situations, technologies and locations of the Danny Phantom universe were created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon Television. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of any trademark or copyright is intended or implied.

Censor: T

**Book 1 – Jazz Phantom **

**Chapter 3 – The Ghost Girl of Amity Park**

Jazz yawned as she slammed her locker shut. This new school day was going well apart from the fact she felt like she hadn't slept at all last night. Between her experiments and the excitement, the necessary serenity that precedes sleep was very difficult for her. It was a good thing that she had long ago established a 'study group' that would ensure no one missed any assignments or important class notes as she wasn't sure she had been entirely awake during all of it.

As a Senior, Jazz frequently missed her Sophomore brother as they were based at opposite ends of Casper High School. Nonetheless, she felt curiously comforted the few times she had passed the boy and his two friends (smiling slightly when she noticed that Sam had contrived to find a black silk scarf to use as a sling for her bandaged arm). The touch of warmth was a new thing that she didn't yet understand. Was this a 'ghost' thing? Feeling a sense of security from one of your own kind? Or was she just that little bit closer to her brother now that she shared such a significant part of his life?

"Hey, Jazz," came a familiar voice, breaking Jazz out of her thoughts.

"Hey, Marty," she replied. Marty Cross was a nice enough guy, Jazz supposed. He wasn't a 'hottie' by any stretch of the imagination (not that she really cared about such things). One of her 'study group', she figured that he liked her a little more than their purely academic relationship should allow but she didn't see any harm in that.

"See you in Math?" the bespectacled, sandy-haired young man asked. Jazz nodded as she set off for her Sociology classroom.

Jazz was half-way to the top floor classroom when she felt cold. A wisp of blue vapour escaped her lips and shot down the corridor. Before Jazz could absorb this experience, Red lights flashed, a klaxon sounded and suddenly the hallway was filled with hysterical children all running for the exit. The ghost alarm!

"Run for your lives!" one boy (a Senior and a member of the football team no less!) screamed as he ran past her, a wet spot clearly visible on the crotch of his pants. "The office equipment is possessed!"

The screams were all focussed on the Commercial Science classroom at the end of the corridor. Jazz suddenly felt a curious peace. For the first time in her life, she knew _exactly_ how to react to the unexpected. As she ducked into the girls' restroom, she wondered if this was how Danny felt. Was a side-effect of their condition the instincts one needed to fight?

"_I'm GOING GHOST!_" A silly urge, but an appropriate one nonetheless. Rings of blue-white light flashed and Jazz, now intangible and invisible flashed across the corridor into the Commercial Science classroom.

As she had expected, the class (a bunch of Juniors) was backed up against the far wall by what looked like a floating swarm of staplers, pens, erasers, bottles of white-out and even one or two electric pencil sharpeners! What they couldn't see, and what Jazz _could_ see was a cloud of green light in a humanoid shape in the middle of the swarm.

_Okay, brave girl, you are here, now what are you going to do?_ Jazz fretted. She immediately decided against doing a 'Sailor Moon' by going visible and launching into a speech of some kind. Danny rightly mocked the full-ghosts love of 'monologuing' and she wasn't going to take up that particular habit. _Hmm… Danny always says it is best to distract their attention right away_. Jazz went visible and dropped to the ground. Everyone was so focussed on the swarm of possessed office equipment that no one noticed. Jazz stretched out her right arm and focussed the tingle of power there. A ball of green-white energy formed in the raised palm of her hand and suddenly turned into a phaser-like energy blast that shot into the green humanoid shape, which suddenly went fully visible as it dropped onto one knee.

"_Who dares challenge Ryman, master of the tools of bureaucracy?_" the ghost hissed as it turned to face her. Okay, it wasn't exactly the most impressive of enemies. If anything, 'Ryman' reminded Jazz of the Box Ghost except he had a fussy little moustache, thick-lens reading glasses and was wearing a garish green pinstripe suit rather than a workman's overalls.

"Let me guess: rule the world?" Jazz called out in a mocking tone.

"_They all laughed at Ryman!_" Ryman roared. "_They said that Ryman was useless! A 'non-contributor'! They said that administrative skills were 'non-value-added'! Well, now Ryman will show all those smug professional types who has the real power! Starting with you!_" With that, Ryman gestured and all the floating office equipment suddenly shot towards Jazz. The female halfa squeaked in fear and went intangible. The equipment phased through her and slammed into the wall, either imbedding itself into the drywall or shattering on impact.

Jazz looked at the resulting wreckage thoughtfully. "Ya know, I'm not sure that the school's insurance policy covers this sort of stuff."

With a roar of rage, Ryman lunged forward and physically tackled Jazz, knocking her against the wall, causing the plaster to shatter around her. Instead of the expected pain, she only felt the pressure of the impact and of Ryman's podgy hands as they clawed at her throat. Jazz's karate lessons (taken on the insistence of mother) came back to mind. She slammed her fingers into the base of Ryman's shoulder joints, making him let go of her. She pushed him away with a light kick and followed up with a pile-driving punch to the solar plexus. Of course, Ryman was a ghost and didn't _have_ vulnerable nerve clusters anymore. However, he obviously hadn't yet worked out that there wasn't a spoon and gasped in pain, floating away from her. Jazz wound up to deliver a twisting roundhouse kick that sent the clerical ghost spinning across the room. "_You… little… whore!_" Ryman gasped, wiping a fleck of blood-like ectoplasm from his lips.

"Sticks and stones, fatso!" Jazz spat back, unleashing a pair of ecto-blasts, one hand after the other that blew the irritating creature through the exterior wall.

Then things fell silent. There was no sign of Ryman. Jazz dropped down (she had been unconsciously levitating) and looked around at the devastation. The Juniors were beginning to shuffle uncertainly, clearly unsure if Jazz was going to attack them next. _How does Danny handle this stuff?_ She fretted to herself. _Do I say something like: 'That's right, citizens, the city is safe once more'?_ "Well," she said aloud. "That didn't seem like too much of a chore…"

Jazz would later admit that this was a mistake – she ought to know that nice Mr. Murphy's law would instantly punish a comment like that. With a roar that didn't even manage to sound slightly human, Ryman phased back through the wall. Instantly, every writing implement and bit of paper in the room was mobile and heading for Jazz. The halfa young woman dived out of the way but already knew that it would be following her. This was no wild attack – Ryman's mind was directing every motion.

Instinctively, Jazz started to fly, twisting around mid-air to unleash a hail of ecto-blasts at the pursuing bits of office equipment. The problem is that there were too many and they were too small. No matter how many she shot out of the air, double that number were still coming at her. Suddenly, Jazz couldn't move! The four laser printers at the front of the room had unplugged themselves and wrapped their power cords around her ankles and wrists! "Get off of me! Get…! Oh… _snap_!" Jazz closed her eyes and winced as the airborne hail of office equipment struck her and threw her towards the wall dividing the classroom from the hall. Instinctively, Jazz went intangible and fell through the wall.

Stunned, the halfa woman staggered to her feet as Ryman drifted through the wall in front of her. A few moments later the four laser printers floated through the doorway and took up position, two to either side of their ghostly master. "_You should have kept away, little girl_." Ryman boomed with a smug grin. "_This place and all within belong to Ryman!_"

"Not on your un-life!" Jazz replied, throwing an ecto-blast at the podgy ghost. With a laugh the creature summoned a ream of paper to take the blast in his stead. Then he gestured towards Jazz and the four laser printers began to spit out sheets of paper as fast as a machinegun does bullets. Taken by surprise, Jazz was struck by the airborne hail of paper and thrown down the length of the hallway by the continuing strikes against her face and limbs. Too wrapped up in the pain of the attack (yes, there _was_ pain now), Jazz didn't realise she was reaching the fire doors out onto the central stairwell until she hit them, _hard_.

As the doors swung closed, Ryman raised his arms in infernal triumph. "_Yes! Ryman is victorious! Ryman is supreme! Ryman…_"

"Ryman has serious self-image problems from the way he needs to talk about himself in the third person!" Jazz phased back through the door and flew directly towards the 'master of the tools of bureaucracy' at full acceleration. The dozens of paper cuts stung like hell and Jazz was not feeling particularly nice anymore.

"_Defend me, my pets!_" Ryman squeaked, sounding genuinely scared (not surprising, given the fierce look on Jazz's face). The laser printers began to spew paper again, the hail of razor-sharp sheets heading right for Jazz, who dropped into a hover.

_I've got to think of a way to stop lots of small targets! Wait a minute! Danny can shoot from his finger tips as well as the palms of his hand…!_ Jazz concentrated her power to her finger tips and, much to her pleasure, generated little energy beams from each of her ten fingers. The beams tracked around like little lasers, cutting every sheet from the air. It also carved burnt, smouldering knife-edge trails along the walls, floor and ceiling but Jazz figured that any public building in Amity Park would have insurance against more typical ghost rampage damage.

The laser printers, now out of ammo, charged Jazz, swinging their plug-tipped power cords like flails. Jazz went intangible and let them fly right through her before turning around and blasting two out of the air with ecto-blasts.

Two of the possessed printers remained. Switching to her karate knowledge, Jazz went corporeal and grabbed one power cord as it swung towards her. She used the momentum to swing the laser printer against the wall where its casing shattered. Then she turned to the last, just in time to get a plug to the face. Jazz jerked away with a cry of pain. She turned back to duck another blow, then levitated up over another before responding with a side kick that span the printer away from her before a twisting punch, energised with a crackling sheath of ectoplasmic energy, shattered the airborne computer peripheral like it was an ice sculpture.

Jazz dropped back down and noticed a pathetic whining noise. The remaining printer was dragging itself towards her, its now-visible parts moving in an attempt to grab her and grind her up like a jammed sheet of paper. With an annoyed noise, Jazz fired an ecto-bolt into the wounded possessed machine, blasting it into a hundred pieces.

Jazz didn't feel the need to suck in a breath, but she did pull herself up a bit straighter as she looked at Ryman, who looked worried and more than a little cowed. "You are running out of toys, Ryman," she announced. "There is still enough time for you just to leave this place, go back to the Ghost Zone and never come back!"

"_Never!_" Ryman declared. The portly ghost stood up a bit straighter, clearly trying to look magisterial and impressive but only managing to look slightly pompous. "_Bureaucracy controls the transfer of knowledge, knowledge is power and, as I am the master of the tools of bureaucracy, I am the master of POWER!_" With that elaborate and somewhat insecure-sounding battle cry delivered, Ryman launched itself towards a stunned Jazz, flying right for her, sparkling brightly with ectoplasmic energy.

Jazz charged up her ecto-blasts again, one in each hand, and noticed that, when she put her hands close together, the 'pre-fire' energy balls merged together. _Ah! That's a nice trick!_ Jazz thought, she raised her hands, wrists touching and fired the combined energy beam at the oncoming ghost. The blast caught Ryman full in the face, stopping his charge and making him drop down to the floor. The ghost glared at Jazz, clearly not out of the fight but currently conserving its power until it had a new strategy to use.

_I'm getting good, but I'm also getting tired!_ Jazz thought desperately. _There has got to be a way to stop him! _Jazz looked at her hands. _Maybe if that stuff is attracted to itself, I can… yeah!_ She generated another pair of ectoplasmic balls. She pressed the energy spheres together and then separated her hands, drawing out a streamer of ectoplasmic energy between them. _Now, if I can get these moving just right…_

Jazz pirouetted, her hands above her head to impart rotational energy to the ectoplasmic balls and streamer and then swung her hands forward and apart, launching the bolo-like projectiles towards Ryman. The attack spun down the hall and struck home, wrapping the ectoplasmic streamer around the ghost, trussing him up from neck to ankles. The ghost fell onto his back with a loud _thud_.

The ghost struggled for a while but clearly couldn't get free. "Okay, you're down, but how do I get rid of you?" Jazz asked herself aloud. "I could try blasting you until you vanish… but Danny says that is the same thing as killing a ghost and I'm not a killer! Blast it! How does Danny deal with this?" Jazz snapped her fingers. "Of course! The Fenton Thermos! Tucker usually has one!" She turned and was about to fly off. On an instinct, she turned back to Ryman. "I'll be right back, pal. Don't move an inch!"

Ryman snarled and suddenly shone with a bright green light. The ectoplasmic streamer binding the rotund ghost vaporised and, before Jazz's eyes, he went intangible and phased through the floor. "Oh no you don't! I haven't gone through all this for you to just run out on me!" Jazz leapt up into the air, went intangible and phased right through the floor, hot on the trail.

After their disappearance, the previously-imperilled students came out of the classroom and into the hall. "That wasn't the Ghost-Boy!" one girl said in amazement. "It was a girl! A ghost girl! Who was it?"

"I don't know! One of her friends replied. "Maybe Inviso-Bill has a big sister or something!"

* * *

On the floor below, Danny Phantom was continuing a systematic search of the wing of the school where his Ghost Sense had told him the latest ghost was. Unfortunately, none of the witnesses had been coherent enough to mention exactly where the creep was rampaging, so Danny was sweeping the building, one level at a time. Of course, this was the senior wing and he hadn't seen Jazz amongst the evacuated pupils outside the building as he tried to get away from Mr. Lancer to transform. He hoped that his sister was okay, especially after Skulker worked her over for a while yesterday. He would always remember the cold panic and hot rage when that filthy scum had boasted of _killing_ her.

Danny was actually quite surprised when a podgy, balding ghost wearing a green pinstripe suit and reading glasses phased through the ceiling. "_Out of the way…_" the spook cried out in a slightly panicked tone of voice. "_I… Oh no! Why _you_ as well?_"

"Me _as well_?" Danny replied, nonplussed. He was about to interrogate the battered-looking ghost further when a second ghost phased through the ceiling. This one was a girl… no, a young woman, wearing a maroon and white jump suit with long blue hair the same colour as Ember's trailing behind her.

"Come back here you troublemaking paranoid-megalomaniac ectoplasmic disaster!" the second ghost screeched in a voice that Danny found hauntingly familiar. The first ghost turned around with a noise that sounded like a cross between panic and anger and lashed out with a very weak-looking ecto-blast that the second ghost dodged, responding with a much more powerful blast of her own. Then, surprisingly, she dropped down to the floor, grabbed the podgy ghost's arm and used a perfect over-the-shoulder karate throw to toss it into the wall. At the last moment, the first ghost went intangible and flew through the wall. "I said come back!" the second ghost yelled, sounding righteously peeved, and shot after it through the wall.

"Great," Danny mumbled in the empty corridor. "Not only do I have to defend my hometown from the dregs of the Ghost Zone, now I also have to act as referee to everyone else's grudge matches too!" The ghostly outlaw defender of Amity Park went intangible and flew through the wall after the previous two fighting spirits.

As he did so, he absently noted the nearby door marked 'Stationery Cupboard'.

Inside, he found that the young-looking female ghost had backed the older-looking podgy male ghost against the far wall, right next to the shelves of office supplies. In the palm of her right hand she held the fiery green-white ball of energy that was a pre-fire ecto blast. "Okay, that's enough!" Danny barked.

The female-form ghost squeaked in surprise and turned to face him before suddenly smiling at him as she dispelled her attack (something that worried Danny – nothing good came from a new ghost being pleased to see him). "About time you got here!" she said in that oddly familiar voice. Now he was up close, her face was familiar too… "This creep was tearing up the Commercial Science classroom and threatening the students before I stopped him!"

Danny quirked an eyebrow. "And I suppose you decided to help out of the goodness of your heart?" he asked, laying on the sarcasm as thick as he could.

"Well… of course I did!" she actually seemed surprised and a little offended.

Danny sighed. "Look, I don't know why you two are fighting but you should keep it to the Ghost Zone not bring it…"

At that point, the podgy ghost stood up straight. "_You fools!_" he roared. "_You have chosen to face me in the place of my greatest power! Now Ryman will destroy you all! Starting with the interfering girl!_" To Danny's surprise, every piece of equipment and paper in the room rose up into the air and lanced towards the girl, who drew back with a gasp of fear. Combat-honed instincts took over and Danny focussed his energy into a super-hard screen of ectoplasm in front of her. The possessed office equipment (yeah, that marked fatso as the original troublemaker all right) bounced off the shield, swirled around the creature referring to itself as 'Ryman' and prepared to fly forward again. Danny drew himself up, opened his mouth and unleashed a Ghostly Wail (dialled down to low power to avoid demolishing the school, as nice as that would be). The displacement blast blew 'Ryman' against the wall and reduced his possessed weapons into slivers of wood, paper and plastic and that quickly dispersed in the maelstrom. The shelves shattered into splinters and the cinder-block wall was suddenly covered with concentric cracks like a shattered window.

Danny winced. _Oh man! If anyone ever figures out who was responsible for that, I'm gonna be working at Nasty Burger for free for the next hundred years to pay for the repairs!_ He looked at the cowering Ryman firmly. "I don't know what your damage is, pal, but ghost or not, no one takes advantage of a girl whilst Danny Phantom is around!" He winked at the female ghost who was looking at him in awe and admiration.

Jazz couldn't help but blush. _Sick and wrong!_ She told herself. _Still, he doesn't realise that I'm his sister but I wonder if he flirts with all females like this? It might explain why Sam is always in such a bad mood!_ Jazz turned back to the clearly-exhausted Ryman and noticed him go intangible. "He's getting away!" she yelled, powering up her ecto-blasts.

"No he isn't," Danny replied with a charming 'bad boy smile', lazily raising his right arm. His eyes went blue and the air temperature plummeted. There was a crackling noise like breaking glass and suddenly Ryman was an ice sculpture. Danny casually unholstered his Fenton Thermos from its strap on the back of his belt, opened the cap and shone the electric blue light onto the frozen ghost. Ryman was stretched like a rubber band along the blue-white cone of light for a moment before vanishing silently into the trap's innards. Danny moved the wheel on the base to close the trap's iris and then turned to face the other ghost, his face cold. "And now it's your turn, Miss. Sorry about that." He raised the trap again, his finger moving to the control wheel.

Jazz's mouth dropped open. "Hey! Wait a minute, Da… Phantom! I'm a good guy!" she yelped, raising her hands as if to ward him off. Danny's eyebrow quirked up sceptically. "I fought to stop him from hurting the students when he attacked! I was trying to help you!"

"Maybe you did and maybe you didn't," Danny replied. "The fact is, though, that I can't have you running around the Physical World where you might hurt someone, whether or not you mean to." Danny actually smiled reassuringly! "Don't worry, I promise that this won't hurt you! You'll be back in the Ghost Zone before you know it!"

_Very bad_, Jazz thought. In her ghost form she was sure that she could survive in the Ghost Zone, but she didn't know how to navigate through it. Besides, she wasn't even sure if her parents had the Portal working again! How would she ever get home? "Look, this isn't…"

"I'm afraid it is," Danny said firmly. "Look, don't worry. I'm not gonna experiment on you or take you as a slave! I'm just gonna take you home!"

_Actually you aren't but you don't know that!_ Jazz thought in a panic. Then she had a brainwave. Rather than try to talk Danny down, she went intangible and slid back into the nearest wall. Inside the wall, instead of going through into the next room, she remained intangible and willed herself up onto the next level as a scowling Danny flew through into the next room below looking for her. As soon as she was into the empty classroom, Jazz went corporeal and visible. Remembering that Danny could sense the presence of ghosts, she switched back to her human form. Thinking quickly, she sat down at a desk with an expression of boredom and resignation.

Danny was kicking himself for falling for such an amateur trick. He swept through the wall into the next classroom. The ghost wasn't there, not even invisible as his spectral vision revealed. He quickly performed a circuit of all the rooms around it, both on this level as well as the ones above and below. In the very last room he entered, there _was_ someone there, but it wasn't the ghost.

"Danny!" Jazz nearly knocked Danny flying from the force of her running hug. "I thought I'd be trapped in here forever! I was getting some stuff for my teacher when the alarm went off! Someone slammed the door shut; I was about to open it when I saw the ghosts fighting outside and realised that it was too dangerous to try to get out!"

Danny unfastened his sister from around his neck with some difficulty, noting again that same odd sensation of _reassurance _that he had felt whenever he was around her for the past day or so. "It's okay, Jazz," he said. "The fight's over for now. I'll escort you out but be careful! There's a ghost still around and she's a pretty powerful and tricky one!"

Jazz nodded, not quite able to restrain the blush of pride from hearing Danny, the mighty and feared Danny Phantom, say that she, a first-time beginner, was 'powerful and tricky' – worthy of respect! "I'll watch out!" she promised.

_To be continued…_


	4. Phantom Family

**Disclosure**

A Danny Phantom fanfic by BenRG

**Disclaimer**

Danny Phantom and the characters, situations, technologies and locations of the Danny Phantom universe were created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon Television. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of any trademark or copyright is intended or implied.

Censor: T

**Book 1 – Jazz Phantom **

**Chapter 4 – Phantom Family**

"And she actually managed to get away!" Danny was complaining into his cellphone. "I feel like a first-time amateur, Sam! I fell for the oldest trick in the book!"

"_Well, a variation of it anyway,_" Sam replied reassuringly. "_It sounds to me like she stayed phased inside the structure of the wall and worked her way out of the building that way._" There was a pause before Sam spoke again. "_Danny… how dangerous do you think this new ghost really is?_"

Danny sighed. "I don't think that she _wants_ to be dangerous, Sam," he replied. "She talked about being a 'good guy' after all and the kids who were trapped in the Commercial Science classroom say that she took a lot of risks to beat Ryman. You know the problem, though: Ghosts don't always understand how fragile humans are and can hurt them by accident even if they don't end up hurting them because they are in the way of their achieving their obsession, whatever that turns out to be."

Tucker was also listening in (ah, the miracles of conference calling). "_Sounds to me like you are more pissed at yourself than her, man._"

Danny was about to take umbrage at that before catching himself and laughing. "Well, I am a bit sore that she did most of the work and got all the praise. How am I supposed to get a reputation as a good guy when everyone else is stealing my press?" Sam and Tucker laughed at that. "In any case, even if she is a 'good guy', maybe _especially_ if she is a 'good guy', I need to catch her and get her back to the Ghost Zone before the Guys in White catch her or, worse yet, Vlad gets his hands on her."

There was silence on the phone line but everyone knew what Danny meant. The GiW agents would certainly rip her apart 'molecule by molecule' whilst that would likely be humane compared to what Vlad would do to a powerful ghost if he decided he wanted to control its powers. "_Well, I'll get my computer to outline a search pattern, Danny,_" Tucker said. "_Tomorrow night, we'll hit the streets and search for her in a methodical way. Right now, though, my mind has turned into fudge! Lancer's essays can do that to you._"

"Yeah, it's late enough, Tuck. I'll see you at school tomorrow, both of you." Tucker hung up but Sam did not. "Sam?"

There was a long pause. "_Yeah, Danny?_"

"Do you still have that Spectre Deflector Mom made for you?"

"_Yeah, it's at the bottom of my closet somewhere._"

"Dig it out and wear it tonight," Danny commanded. "Just in case."

"_Why Danny! Special instructions just for me! What did I do to get special treatment?_" Sam's voice was flirtatious and teasing. "_Why don't you ever give safety advice to Tucker?_"

Danny chuckled. "Tucker is paranoid enough that he wears his every night." _Besides,_ Danny added silently, _if Tucker were killed, it would tear my heart out. If you were killed, it would turn me into a living nightmare that would kill everything in two universes to try to stop the pain._ "You are too brave for your own good, Sam. Please do this for me."

"_I will, Danny. I might like living life on the edge, but I'm not one to take stupid risks for no reason._" Sam didn't add that Danny, on the other hand, _did_ take stupid risks for reasons that, whilst she understood, she didn't like.

"Thank you, Sam."

There was another long pause before Sam spoke. Danny heard her yawn. "_Tucker's right. It's too late to do anything but sleep now. Take care, Danny. Don't do anything stupid as I want to see you in the morning without any new bumps or bruises._"

Danny laughed. "You know how careful I am!"

Sam chuckled in response. "_That's what I'm worried about. Good night, Danny. I'll see you tomorrow._"

"Good night, Sam. Until tomorrow." Danny watched as his cell's display confirmed that Sam had hung up and slowly folded it shut. "I love you," he whispered to himself. He would never have believed if someone had told him that Sam had said exactly the same thing after hanging up.

Danny turned off his reading light, double-checked that his alarm clock was set and then rolled over onto his side to go to sleep. At that moment, a wisp of blue vapour escaped his lips. Danny scowled. "Oh man, why don't they ever let up?"

* * *

Jazz had taken the precaution of sneaking out of the house before transforming in an alleyway and launching into a looping airborne patrol pattern over the Upper Amity, the down-scale neighbourhood in which Fenton Works resided. She hoped that she had been far enough away as to not trigger Danny's Ghost Sense.

Jazz was still very tired, especially after the amount of energy she had released during the fight at the school. She had eaten three portions at dinner and was still hungry enough to snack on Mom's disgusting leftovers afterwards; she presumed that her body would metabolise all of that into ectoplasmic energy the same way that Danny's did. On top of the post-fight fatigue, she was feeling last night's lost sleep. However, she was the older one, the _responsible_ one. It was her job to look out for her little brother and that is why she was patrolling for any intruder ghosts that might disrupt her brother's sleep on this school night. The irony that she was disrupting _her_ sleep on a school night naturally didn't enter into her mind. This was just something she had to do.

Having learnt a little from her mistakes, she had a Fenton Thermos strapped to the back of her HAZMAT suit's utility belt. Apart from that one necessary change, the fight against Ryman had given her a degree of confidence in her ability to fight another ghost. Even if she had not yet come close to equalling Danny's astonishing power level, she at least felt she knew enough tricks to get by.

Jazz was tired enough that she didn't really respond to the tingling of her Ghost Sense until the green-white energy blast shot through the air right in front of her face. Jazz went into a twisting, turning dive and looped back up, her ecto-blasts powering up, when she saw who had just attacked was hovering ahead of her. He was looking suitably fierce and powerful, standing on thin air, his arms crossed in front of him and his eyes shining brightly.

"D… I mean… Phantom!" She dropped into a hover and dispelled her energy blasts. As much as it went against the grain to go into a confrontation unarmed, she didn't want to provoke Danny into a pre-emptive attack. "Some way of introducing yourself, Ghost-Boy! What can I do for you?"

"You can go back to the Ghost Zone voluntarily and save me the trouble of having to fight you," Danny snapped. "I really don't have the time for this crap, you know!"

"DANNY! LANGUAGE!" Jazz snapped before covering her mouth and blushing. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_, she reproved herself. She guessed she must be more tired than she thought to make a slip like that. Still, she had to deal with this confrontation before Danny trapped her in the Ghost Zone. She began looking for a way to escape but she was out in the open and Danny's attacks had the range to hit her several times before she was able to get away, even if she flew at maximum speed. "Maybe I'm not from the Ghost Zone and don't want to go there! Thought about that smart guy?"

Danny was blinking in surprise that the ghost girl had used his given name. It wasn't exactly a _secret _but it wasn't commonly used by other ghosts. He shook his head and focussed again on the here and now. "What kind of an idiot do you take me for?" he sighed. "All ghosts originate in the Ghost Zone just as all humans originate in the Physical World. That is the way things work."

Jazz licked her lips nervously and raised her hands in a submissive gesture. "Okay, I surrender! I'll go back to the Ghost Zone!" she bluffed. She smiled slightly at Danny's clear surprise. "On one condition," she added. Rather awkwardly, Jazz tried to pose flirtatiously. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours first!" Blank stare. Jazz sighed. "Your lair, idiot! I want to see your place!"

Danny rolled his eyes. "Look, whoever you are, I don't have time for these games…"

"What? What's so wrong with what I'm asking? I'm going to show you the place I stay in the Ghost Zone, is it so wrong for you to show me yours? I'm trying to be co-operative and friendly here!"

Danny felt genuinely abashed by the girl ghost's outrage. Somehow it was just as bad as when Jazz shouted at him for not doing his chores or homework. It made him feel defensive and he didn't like that. "Maybe I don't want you to see my lair!" he shot back. "Maybe I don't want to see yours either!"

"What, aren't you even slightly curious?" Jazz shot back, grateful for all those mock sessions in which she learnt to press her brother's buttons. "Come on! No obligation and no trickery! Don't tell me that you wouldn't want to find at least one ally on our side of the Divide?" Danny was flailing for a response when Jazz cut in. "Or maybe…" She raised an eyebrow and floated closer to her brother. "Or maybe you _don't have one to show me_!"

"That's… that's ridiculous, every ghost has a lair in the Ghost Zone!"

"So they say," Jazz shot back. "But I don't think you have one! Where is it, if you have one?" Danny stuttered for a moment. Oh, he could _lie_ but that could easily cause later problems if this ghost ever got back into this world. "You see? That hesitation is the clue! You don't have one! Every ghost has a lair. So, if you don't have a lair, then you can't _really_ be a ghost. You're something else, not from the Zone. Just like me. _I_ don't have a lair, so I'm something else, not from the Zone."

Danny suddenly straightened up and scowled angrily, reaching for his Thermos. "I've given you a chance! You're going back no matter what stupid stories…!"

Jazz panicked and used her last card, her voice raised to a shout. "You aren't a ghost at all! You're like me! HALFA!"

Danny froze. Only a few ghosts would openly speak of Danny's nature and all of them were, in some way, either friends or associated with Vlad Masters, aka Plasimus, Danny's arch-foe. "Where did you hear that word?" he asked dangerously, letting go of his Thermos and subtly powering up for a fight.

"From my brother," Jazz said quietly. "Will you listen to me and give me a chance to explain who and what I am?"

Danny locked onto one key phrase. "Your brother? Who is your brother?" _Please, God, don't let her be Vlad's sister. I couldn't handle another one of them!_

Jazz sighed. "Sam is right," she said at last. "You really _are_ clueless. Am I really so well disguised that you can't recognise me?" Danny squinted as the female-form ghost that claimed to be a halfa floated a little closer. Try as he might, whilst she remained frustratingly familiar, he couldn't place the face, and this was all the worse as _she knew about Sam_! "I should have told you right away but I didn't want you to feel bad. You already carry such a great weight Danny, and I didn't want to make it any worse."

They were close now and Danny suddenly, heartrendingly, _knew_ this ghost. He was a fool for not realising the first moment that he had seen her! The change of hair and eye colour was not enough to really disguise her identity! He reached out and touched that cold, cold ectoplasmic face, tracing out the shape that was, of course, the third human face that he had ever seen. "_Jazz?_"

* * *

Danny Phantom touched down on the rooftop of an apartment building and watched his… his… his _sister_ land a bit more clumsily a few paces away. "Jazz, what happened to you?" he asked, his voice choked with grief and horror. Had Skulker killed her yesterday? If so, why had she returned? He couldn't think of any spirit that would have less reason to be restless than his sister.

"What happened to you?" Jazz countered with a shaky smile. "It wasn't planned, Danny. One of Skulker's shots wrecked the Portal and he threw me into it." She half-laughed, half-sobbed. "I wasn't even worth his time to kill, so he threw me away like garbage! I don't know if he expected the Portal to kill me or if he thought he was sending me into the Zone! All I know is that it hurt. It hurt so much that I wanted to be dead, that I begged God to let me die."

Danny nodded solemnly. "I remember," he whispered. "No one else should have to know that feeling."

Jazz nodded. "I know," she replied quietly. She leaned forward and wiped away a tear with a white-gloved hand. "Hey," she added. "No tears. I'm over it now, just like you." Jazz sighed and stood back. "Final proof," she announced. Rings of white light appeared and, in the place of the maroon-suited ghost girl stood Jazz Fenton, wearing her usual day clothes.

Danny did not consciously remember returning to his human form, all he remembered was ending up in his sister's arms, crying and shaking. "Why?" he shouted. "Why did this have to happen to you? Bad enough that I'm stuck in this _hell_! No, it has to happen to my sister too! What did we do? Why are we being _punished_ like this?"

Jazz hugged her little brother tightly. "Oh Danny!" she gasped out, tears starting in her own eyes. "Danny, we can't know why things happen! We're only human! Yes! Human! I'm convinced of that for all our strange gifts!" Danny shook his head in fierce denial and tried to bury himself deeper into Jazz's embrace. "Daniel Scott Fenton! Look at me!" Jazz snapped. Danny looked up, his blue eyes wide. "Danny, do you think that I'm a monster?" Danny shook his head. Never! Jazz was perfect! Everyone knew that! "Danny, my condition is the same as yours! If I'm not a monster, _neither are you_!"

Danny shuddered and sucked in a deep sob. "It… it just doesn't seem fair," he whispered.

"Fair?" Jazz shrugged and managed a game grin. "Show me an atom of 'fair' or a particle of 'justice' Danny and I'll agree with you. Things like this don't happen on human terms and we can't expect them to abide by them." She sighed and deliberately pushed her little brother slightly away, her hurt, _scared_ little brother who, despite his strength was still only a 15-year-old boy, so she could look into his eyes. "Danny you have your friends who help you. I want you to know that I'm glad this happened, not because I wanted to share your power but because I always wanted to help you too."

There was a long silence before Danny fiercely wiped the tears from his cheeks and looked up into his sister's eyes. "We… we can't keep this secret from Sam and Tucker. They know everything about me and I _won't_ keep it secret from them."

Jazz nodded acquiescence. She didn't have a problem with that. "There is the issue of Mom and Dad," she said quietly.

Danny's eyes opened comically wide. "Jazz! We can't tell Mom and Dad! They'll hate us! They'll try to catch us and experiment on us!" Jazz wished that she could tell Danny that he was being silly but she couldn't. Sometimes she really worried about their parents. "They think that 'Ghost-Boy' is a monster and if they hear about another 'ghost kid' around they'll think the same about you too! They'll never stop hunting you!" Danny shook his head. "No! I won't let that happen! Jazz, you have to pretend that you aren't a halfa! You can't ever use your powers again! I'm willing to take the risk to help people but I won't let you…!"

"HEY!" Danny looked up at his suddenly angry sister. "Look here, _buster_. You don't tell me what I can and can't do! I'm the older one here and I'm half-way to deciding that it's _you_ who should give up this double life and leave it to the older sibling, the way it should be!" Danny's face flamed with anger and he was about to shout at Jazz when she interrupted him. "Yeah! Not a nice feeling, is it? Being told to give up something so important to you? Well think about that the next time you try to decide for other people what they should and should not do, _little brother_!" Danny did a 'landed fish' impression as Jazz continued in a quieter tone. "Sam and Tucker have _chosen_ to do this because they… well because they are your best friends and don't want you to go into danger alone. _You've_ chosen to do this because it is something that has to be done. I choose to do it…" Jazz sighed and covered her face. "I don't believe I'm about to say this and I will _totally_ deny it if you tell anyone but I'm going to do this… I'm going to do this because I'm so very, _very_ proud of you little brother. I'm proud of the choices you have made and the path you have chosen and it would be my privilege to fight side by side with you every step of the way."

Jazz grinned and reached forward to squeeze Danny' shoulders. The boy looked up into her eyes and Jazz met that gaze fearlessly. "You are not alone, Danny. I'll be with you in good times and bad."

Danny was silent for a little while longer, clearly digesting Jazz's impassioned words. "Okay," he said at last. Then he grinned mischievously. "But I warn you now that I will put you on the bench if you screw up! Until _I_ am satisfied that you are up to speed, you will do whatever I say! Got that, _rookie_?" He laughed at Jazz's expression of outrage and, transforming to his ghost form, he took off into the air, shouting insults and taunts through his laughter. Jazz transformed and launched herself into the air just a few seconds behind him, shouting threats and promises of vengeance through her own laughter.

The people of Amity Park would long tell odd stories that night, of the two laughing ghostly children who chased each other through the skies all through the night until dawn.

* * *

As the sun began to peek over the horizon, Danny and Jazz, still in their ghost forms, sat on a ledge below the clock on the Amity Sun-Times building and looked out over their home city.

"Jazz?"

"Hmm?"

"What are we gonna call you?" Jazz blinked in surprise so Danny elaborated. "I've got a few aliases. 'Inviso-Bill' and 'Ghost-Boy' seem to be the most common but I prefer 'Danny Phantom'."

Jazz was quiet. "I'm sure that some will call me 'Ghost-Girl' even though I'd prefer 'Ghost-Woman'." Danny laughed quietly, knowing his sister's desire to be seen as 'adult'. "But I'm proud of my family, Danny. I'm proud of who you are and I'm determined to live up to that if I'm given the chance. I think that I'll use the name 'Jazz Phantom' for now." Jazz lit up her powers and used it to draw a symbol in the air, one like Danny's own but with an upward and leftward curling tail at the bottom of the 'P' symbol, turning it into a hybrid with the letter 'J'.

Danny smiled. "It's geeky and inelegant," he said. "I like it."

_To be continued…_


	5. Epilogue

**Disclosure**

A Danny Phantom fanfic by BenRG

**Disclaimer**

Danny Phantom and the characters, situations, technologies and locations of the Danny Phantom universe were created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon Television. This is a not-for-profit fan work for free distribution through the world-wide web. No infringement of any trademark or copyright is intended or implied.

Censor: T

**Book 1 – Jazz Phantom **

**Epilogue**

_A few weeks later…_

"Okay," Jack Fenton said. "I think the time has come to surrender and get to bed."

Maddie Fenton looked up from where she was staring at a print-out of the latest ectoplasmic valance readings from various parts of the town. "Is there something wrong, dear?" she asked absently.

Jack laughed. "Only that I've been staring at this print-out for ten minutes and I can _still_ only see gibberish!" Jack yawned. "I'm heading up to bed." The bear-like man grinned at his wife and best friend and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Wanna come tuck me in?"

Maddie grinned back, narrowing her eyes sensually. "Maybe in five minutes, Jack. I've got to finish making all the equipment safe."

Jack nodded and kissed Maddie on the cheek, the auburn-haired woman leaning into her lover's touch just a little.

Maddie watched Jack walk up the stairs. Then she leant back in her high lab stool as far as she could go without overbalancing and stretched her arms. _You know, I think I'm getting old. These all-nighters are getting harder every day!_ Maddie sighed. It would be _nice_ to get some help around the lab from the kids but, no matter how hard she and Jack tried, they had never been able to get Jazz or Danny even remotely interested in their work. Indeed, from their reactions (especially recently), Maddie sometimes felt that their kids really seemed to be _frightened_ of them and their work, something that tore at Maddie's heart.

There was something else. For some time now, a wall had been growing between her and Danny. They had been so close when Danny was young but now she hardly knew what the boy was up to when he was out with his friends. Maddie suspected that he was being bullied at school, but the boy was stubbornly uncommunicative about this and all other aspects of his life.

It had only really got bad over the last year, though. Danny thought that he had hid it from her and, to give the boy credit, he did hide it well but Maddie was smart enough to see how he came home sore and aching from injuries that he did not feel able to tell her about. Worse still, she was aware that he was sneaking out some nights, often not returning until the early hours of the morning. She was still working on getting enough courage to approach the Mansons and the Foleys to see if Danny's friends were also involved in these late-night shenanigans.

Now, Jazz had started doing the same thing! She loved her oldest child and, in her drive for perfection and knowledge, saw a lot of herself reflected back. However, one thing Jazz would never be able to manage was being _sneaky_. She knew that her daughter had started sneaking out at night too and had been trying to hide that she had been coming home hurt and scared…

There was a loud 'thud' that echoed through the basement laboratory as Maddie slammed her fists down on the worktop. She didn't know what hurt her more – that her kids were in trouble or that they didn't feel they could come to her or Jack for help.

She knew that Danny and Jazz were confiding with each other but they had been ultra-careful not to leave even a hint as to what was happening. Frankly, she had to face the frustrating fact that her children seemed to know each other's cares and concerns far better than either of their parents.

Maddie sighed and looked down at the paranormal activity reports sent every day from the office of the Chief of Police. Just to make things that much more _interesting_, there was a new ghost in town – one apparently allied to that blasted 'Ghost-Boy', Inviso-Bill, Danny Phantom or whatever _it _was called. Oddly enough, this one seemed to have a female form. A partner? Even a life-mate? There was some evidence to suggest that some ghosts formed co-operative partnerships, possibly even associated for their entire existences.

Maddie threw her pen down onto the reports. _No_, she told herself furiously. _This is what started it. Jack and I have become so focussed on our work and so detached from the kids that we barely know them anymore! Now they are in trouble and can only turn to each other and their friends, not us! I've __**got**__ to prioritise. Starting from tomorrow, I am going to show Danny and Jazz that they mean more to me than some mass of ectoplasm energised by neural energy echoes ever could! I am going to earn their trust again and I am going to find out what is happening to them!_

Maddie sighed and stood up, ready now to join her husband for the night. _I just wish that this new Ghost-Girl hadn't appeared just when Jazz seems to have got sucked into whatever is happening with Danny. For some reason, my professional and personal problems seem to multiply in synch!_

* * *

"Damn it."

"We lost her again?"

"I don't know what's happening. Sometimes the scanner gets a firm lock on her trace and then she just fades out as if she doesn't exist! Maybe she's learnt a new trick!"

"Or maybe that piece of junk is as defective as everything else that comes out of R&D these days!"

From where she was hidden in a pile of festering garbage, the girl child known variously as Dani, Danielle Masters or Dani Phantom watched as the two agents of the GIW (General Intelligence Works or, colloquially 'Guys In White') glared at their suddenly-useless ectoplasmic activity tracers and turned away. Long accustomed to the requirements of stealth, she completely held in her desire to giggle at their frustration. She was glad she had worked out a way to completely internalise her ectoplasmic aura, making it nearly impossible for her to be detected non-visually so long as she kept her concentration.

The agent known as 'O' turned a knob on the side of his scanner, increasing its sensitivity. "Come on, come on," he growled.

This partner, 'K', slapped him on the shoulder. "Give it up, man," he advised. "She's got us beat today and we don't have the time to waste on her!"

O looked at K in surprise. "We don't?"

"Nah, haven't you been listening to the scuttlebutt in the break room? There's a new 'good' ghost in Amity Town! It's a female-form this time and it has been seen closely co-operating with the Ghost-Boy! Even has the same powers!"

O blinked in surprise. "So… the Ghost-Boy has a girlfriend?" That bit of intelligence made Dani's concentration slip for just a moment. O's scanner bleeped. "Wait a minute, I've got… no… Damn it! Gone again!"

"Forget about it, O, it was probably just a short-circuit or something."

O sighed and turned off his scanner, K quickly following suit. "So, talk to me about this new ghost in Amity Town."

"You'll hear all you need to know at the mission briefing," K said. O raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, we're being sent after her. The Top Floor figures that, as she's newer, she might not know all the tricks that Inviso-Bill does. If we can catch and study her, then we might get a clue on how to catch her 'brother'."

O and K turned to leave. After she was certain they were gone, Dani transformed into her ghost form and phased out of the garbage pile, rising up into the air. They were going to Amity Park! Danny was in danger! In a life full of only the weirdest and, occasionally, most abusive of relationships, Dani treasured her relationship with her 'cousin', Danny Fenton. Of all the beings she had met, only he had treated her with unconditional respect and love. She owed it to him to let him know that the GIW were after him… and his… 'girlfriend'?

That bit didn't seem to feel right to Dani. Danny had occasionally formed alliances-of-convenience with ghosts but she knew that he felt closer to his human half than his ghost half and she found it improbable to say the least that he would try to start a relationship with a ghost, especially given their obsessive/monomaniac personalities.

Dani thought furiously for a moment. K had said that the new 'Ghost-Girl' seemed to have the same powers as Danny did… Dani's eyes opened wide enough so that they could have popped out. There were only three ghosts that she knew of with these powers – herself, Danny (who was, genetically, nearly-identical to her) and her 'creator', Vlad Masters, who had got his powers from an identical accident to the one that empowered Danny. That this new 'Ghost' had those powers… meant that _she was a halfa too_!

Dani shook her head before going invisible and intangible and flying higher up into the sky. She angled back, turning her upward path into a ballistic curve that carried her away from the city of Chicago and towards Amity Park. Whoever this halfa was (and Dani couldn't wait to meet her) she was in trouble and it was up to Dani to warn her that the GIW was on her trail.

After all, that is what heroes do and heroics was kind of the 'family business'.

_To be continued in __**Book 2 – Trinity**_


End file.
